


back home.

by katarama



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Teachers, F/M, Future Fic, Kid Fic, Kindergarten, Polyamory, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 16:01:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6290866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/pseuds/katarama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifteen years ago, if you had asked Lydia Martin where she would be at 30 years old, it wouldn’t have been sitting on the floor of a classroom leading a kindergarten class through circle time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	back home.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fuchs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuchs/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, Hannah!!

Fifteen years ago, if you had asked Lydia Martin where she would be at 30 years old, it wouldn’t have been sitting on the floor of a classroom leading a kindergarten class through circle time.

Granted, it’s not where she is.  Not really.  She’s a tenured professor at MIT.  She’s on the cutting edge of research, working towards the Fields Medal she’s dreamed about since she was six years old.  She has an apartment in Cambridge, a Charlie Card she uses more than her credit card.  That’s her everyday life.

But her mom is alone, and when her mom called Lydia, that familiar Bad News tone of voice as she told Lydia the diagnosis, Lydia was on the first flight back she could get.  She worked with the university, and they’re giving her a semester, on the condition that during that time, she’s working on her research.  Being isolated from the other professors isn’t ideal, but math isn’t a subject she can’t do without bulky, intense equipment, at least.

“You should do something besides sit here and fret over me all day,” her mother said.  “Do something besides research.  You usually have classes of students too, don’t you?”  When she recommended Lydia pick up a class substitute teaching at the grade school, Lydia thought she was joking.  But Lydia _did_  spend a lot of time stuck in her mother’s house at Beacon Hills, and she was getting a bit antsy.

After a week or so thinking about it, Lydia stopped by the office and saw if she was needed.  As long as she doesn’t get paid, she’s pretty sure there shouldn’t be a problem with the university, and how hard can it be to work with children, right?

* * *

 

Lydia knows that a lot of the pack ended up back in Beacon Hills.  Jackson took over for his father after law school, enjoying being a big fish in a small pond back in lowly Beacon Hills.  Mason’s still around, working the emissary trade from Marin and Deaton.  Stiles and Scott came back together, in more ways than one.  Lydia and Scott text, sometimes, and she heard when the two of them finally asked each other out.  In one sense, Lydia wasn’t surprised at all when she got a picture of the two of them kissing.  On the other hand, she felt a little bit sad, in a distant kind of way, especially hearing it from Scott.

On the other hand, it was easier than when the baby pictures started streaming in from Stiles.

Lydia figures she’ll run into one of them at some point.  It’s only a matter of time, small towns being what they are.  She’ll have to visit Scott with her puppy, or she’ll run into Stiles in the cruiser, or at the grocery store.  She knows she could easily text them and ask to meet up, and they’d drop their plans for her, but she’s almost intimidated, after all this time.  They’re their own little family unit now, Scott and Stiles and their two kids and the puppy.  For all her accomplishments, there’s just her, Lydia Martin, older and alone and wearing slightly more practical heels.

Fifteen years ago, she would’ve scoffed at the idea of being intimidated by Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski.  Now, it’s enough that she’s avoiding seeing them, even though she misses them.  Their life is here and full, and she isn’t a part of it anymore.

At least, she isn’t until her second day substitute teaching.

She’s in for a week with the kindergartners, and she makes sure to get schedules and lesson plans and names from their normal teacher.  She prepares as much as she can without taking too much time out of her schedule for banging her head against the math wall so she’s as ready as she can be to deal with 20 children without losing her cool.

The first day is actually not as stressful as she expects.  There’s a teacher’s aide for the class who is there for the first few periods to help her through things and to help field questions about where their normal teacher is.  She catches Lydia up to speed on what the teacher she’s filling in for didn’t tell her, in terms of classroom procedures and rules.  Lydia learns quickly where the paper towels are and where the band-aids are, and the kids are a little bit restless, but aside from a nap time disaster where one of the kids starts crying because his teacher isn’t there to tuck him in, the kids seem to adapt pretty well to her being there.  

The second day, though, a very familiar face lines up in the morning line and marches up to her, a piece of paper in her hand.

“Daddy said to give this to you,” she says, and Lydia opens up the paper to see a sick note, Stiles’ signature scrawled at the bottom.  

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Lydia says gently.  “I’ll send this to the office, why don’t you go sit down?”

Lydia has a brief flash of hope for a few moments that her dread at having a Stilinski child in her homeroom will be okay.  She has a fleeting belief  that Scott’s influence would be enough to tone things down, and that the little girl will be perfectly behaved.

She should’ve remembered that Scott, at times, was just as troublemaking and just as difficult as Stiles.  The girl flits over to the seat with her name tag, sits down, and starts fiddling with the snaps of her neighbor’s pencil box.

“Keep your hands to yourself,” Lydia can hear the teacher’s aide saying to her, and the little girl folds her hands in her lap, her eyes big and wide, innocent.

By the end of show and tell, when Stiles’ kid interrupts the girl showing off her brand new stuffed butterfly to start asking questions out of turn three times, Lydia can already tell that this is going to be one of those kinds of days where she’s going to want to pop open a bottle of wine when she gets home.  She hasn’t done drunk math in a while, but she figures that that night will be as good a time as any to get back into it.  

The one positive thing is that the kid goes down without complaint for nap time, and actually sleeps.  She has a Spider-Man pillow that she clings to tightly, and one of her friends, Boyd and Erica’s kid, wraps an arm around her, the two of them dozing off together.  They share a Dora blanket, and it’s a mental image that gets Lydia through the day.

It isn’t just Stiles that picks their kid up from school.  Stiles shows up in the cruiser with Scott in tow, the two of them walking over to the line together.  Scott’s whole face lights up, his arms reaching out to pull their child into a hug when Lydia lets her run over to greet him.

“Daddy, daddy, you gotta meet Ms. Lydia,” she says, and Scott and Stiles’ share a look of surprise before finding Lydia.  Lydia stands there, her clipboard and her checklist, her shirt with a collared ruffle and cardigan, her conservative skirt and heels.

“We already have, kiddo,” Stiles says.  “Your daddies are old friends with Ms. Lydia.”

* * *

 

Lydia doesn’t end up getting home for her wine alone.

Boyd comes not long after to pick up his kid, and after getting a hug from Lydia and a promise that they’ll do dinner, he agrees to let Scott and Stiles’ kids come over and spend the night.  Stiles invites Lydia out for dinner and drinks, and though Lydia really does have work she should be doing, Stiles’ big, brown eyes are fond and hopeful.  Lydia says yes, and the smile Scott gives her makes her feel guilty for ever putting off seeing them again in the first place.

Lydia drops her car off at her place and Scott and Stiles take her to an old haunt, a pizza place they all used to love back in high school.  It tastes just like Lydia remembers it, though the booths feel smaller than she remembered them being.  Or maybe it’s just that Scott and Stiles are both bigger, broader-shouldered and older, looking more like men than the terrified teenagers she remembers them being.

Stiles cracks a joke about getting to eat pizza that isn’t cheese or pepperoni, and it kicks off a conversation about their children.  Lydia gets the feeling that if she let them, they could talk about them all night, their love for them evident even in the most exasperated moments.  Lydia teases them about their little one being a handful, and Scott’s “I told you so” facial expression that he directs towards Stiles is enough to have Lydia giggling.

“We’re working on it,” Stiles says sheepishly.  “She’s a good kid, like you said.  She’s just got a lot of energy.”

“Sounds like someone I know,” Lydia says lightly.

“Someone you used to know,” Stiles replies.  “Or, at least, someone you used to know better.  Someone who thought you were their friend and wouldn’t lose touch when you went across the country to rule the world.”

“I’m really sorry,” Lydia says.  “I got busy and caught up in things, but I missed you.  Both of you.”

“How long are you home?”  Scott asks.

“Only the semester,” Lydia admits.  “Maybe the summer, if my work is where they want it to be at by then.  Mom’s treatment has already started, and they say she’ll be in recovery before then, if there aren’t any complications, but the time around to help out might be good, after.  We’ll see.”

“It isn’t enough,” Stiles says.  “But it’s better than nothing, especially if you come over.  The pack’s missed you.”

“We’ve missed you,” Scott says.  It’s so earnest Lydia’s heart beats fast in her chest, and she reaches out across the table to grab one hand, each, with her own.  Her hands feel small, and she can feel the grease from the pizza on their hands, but she doesn’t even care.  Scott squeezes her hand, and Lydia lets go so they can eat.

“Over to ours for drinks?” Stiles offers when the pizza’s been demolished, and Lydia says yes.

* * *

 

She knows that she’s going to have some things to sort out for the rest of the time she’s in Beacon Hills as a result of one night and a few drinks, but she doesn’t think she actually minds all that much.  The alcohol brings things closer to the surface, breaks down some of the safeguards she had carefully constructed after all that time away from Beacon Hills.  She feels lighter, being around Scott and Stiles.  It’s easy and familiar, and they’re easy and familiar around each other, even more so than she remembered back when they were kids.

Scott and Stiles are kissing on the couch, and Scott’s holding her hand, and she thinks maybe she’s a little bit too drunk to be there, and also too drunk to get home.  Stiles is almost certainly too drunk to take her until morning, and Scott offers, but his offer makes her pause.

“You’re welcome to stay here,” he says seriously.  “We have a really big bed.  There’s plenty of room.”

“I don’t want to take up the space in your bed,” Lydia says.  “I can sleep on the couch, you don’t have to inconvenience yourselves.”

“We’re asking you to be there because we want you there,” Stiles says.  His eyes are glassy from the booze, his glass on a coaster on the table.  “We’ve wanted you there for years.”

“I’m not going to have sex with you when we’re drunk,” Lydia says, and Scott looks surprised.

“We wouldn’t have let you initiate sex drunk,” Scott says, measured and even.  Lydia wonders if it’s the voice he uses to talk to the animals he works with, the ones who are scared and skittish.  If she were any less drunk, the analogy wouldn’t be inaccurate.  “Though maybe that’s something we’ll need to talk about when we’re all sober, if it’s something you’ve been thinking about.”

“It is,” Lydia says.  “For years.  Once Stiles stopped being creepy.”

“Heeey,” Stiles objects, but he doesn’t actually look all that offended.  Hindsight, probably, being 20/20, and some time and distance.  “I’m not trying to get into bed with you.  Or, I am, but not to have sex with you.  Tonight.  I just wanted you there.”

“In your marriage bed?” Lydia asks.  Her glass is sweating in her hands, making them feel chilly and clammy, but hiding behind it feels safer than putting it down.

“Yeah,” Stiles says calmly.  “Scott and I have been wanting it for years.”

“Really?”

She looks to Scott, the sober one, the reasonable one.  She doesn’t know what she expects to find; caution, maybe, or discomfort.  Some sort of indication that Stiles is wrong, or exaggerating.  She doesn’t find any of it written in the lines of Scott’s face.  There’s only a barely guarded wistfulness that has Lydia’s stomach in knots.

“I want that,” Lydia says, and when they finish their drinks, she finds herself between Scott and Stiles in bed, dozing off easily.

* * *

 

“I can’t stay here forever,” Lydia says quietly.  It’s early, and she’s exhausted and slightly hung over, a dull headache throbbing in the back of her head already.  She’s sitting at the kitchen table in one of Scott’s loosely-fitting shirts and her underwear, and she should feel self-conscious about it, but she doesn’t.  She couldn’t sleep in her work clothes, and even though it’s been years, no one has seen her at her most vulnerable more than Scott and Stiles.  This feels easy, drinking  orange juice and talking, taking the tylenol Scott passes her.

“We know,” Scott says.  “We don’t expect you to give up your life for us.”

“I wish I could,” Lydia tells him.  It’s too honest.  It’s way too honest.

“I don’t wish that,” Stiles says.  “You wouldn’t be happy if you weren’t off kicking old white mathematician dudes’ asses.”

“And you still want me to be with you?”

“Yeah,” Scott says.  “We can work out the logistics as we go.  We have a semester before you leave, we can start to figure stuff out.  But we want you, and we love you.”

Lydia knows that, sometimes, love isn’t enough.  She knows they’re headed for a long-distance relationship, and that things are going to get busy for both of them.  She knows they’re still going to have their kids and their life, and she’s going to be in her apartment in Cambridge, and it isn’t going to be easy.

“Okay, then,” she says, in spite of it all.  “I want to be with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr [here](http://sleepy-skittles.tumblr.com).


End file.
